“That’s all right! I am on my way to Bryan’s. Know, the country hereabouts?”
Hardy admitted that he was tolerably well acquainted with it and, in response to the stranger’s gestured invitation, sat down on one end of a fallen tree. The stranger took a seat at the other, with the horse’s bridle over his arm.
“My name’s Beatty. I’m from Pennsylvania. Came in with a train, but they’re about ten miles behind. We think of settling hereabouts.”
Hardy was not entirely satisfied with this statement. Neither the man nor the horse seemed to fit with it. The latter was as fine an animal as Hardy had ever seen in Kentucky and not at all like the kind of beast a settler might be expected to ride. As to the stranger, whilst he wore the usual backwoods costume, it was ornamented with a profusion of beading and feathers such as adorned the dress of Indian chiefs.
Hardy did not betray the uneasiness excited in him by the stranger’s appearance and which increased with closer observation. He cautiously answered the other’s questions whilst closely scrutinizing him. Beatty, as he called himself, was anxious to know the number and distribution of the settlers in that part of Kentucky, and to secure other information such as one contemplating taking up land might naturally desire. Nevertheless, Hardy’s vague suspicion prompted him to return deceptive answers whilst simulating the utmost candor.
Truly the appearance of the professed settler was not such as to inspire confidence. He was an undersized but well-knit man with a small bullet head. Although he had in reality not reached his thirtieth year, the seamed countenance gave the impression of much greater age. It was an evil face. The eyes were black, close set, and snake-like. Their glance was at once furtive and sinister. The swarthy surface of the face was startlingly broken by a broad scar extending from the forehead to the jaw upon the right side. The ears, round and flat, stood out from the head like those of a bat. High cheek-bones flanked a thin aquiline nose, beneath which stretched a straight, almost lipless, mouth.
Hardy was an unusually plucky young man, but he felt cold chills running up and down his spine as he looked at the stranger. From the first moment of their encounter he had been repelled by him and the sensation of distrust and aversion grew with every moment. But more predominant than any other feeling was a sense of having met the man before. This he knew was not the case but still the idea that he had seen this sinister-looking individual somewhere held possession of him. Suddenly the truth flashed upon his mind. He knew the man seated at the other end of the log.
Whilst continuing with apparent frankness to reply to the stranger’s enquiries, Hardy carelessly brought his rifle across his knees and gradually moved it until his hand was upon the trigger and the muzzle pointed at the breast of the man beside him.
“Don’t move!” he said in low but determined tones. “No doubt your Indian friends are within call, but if you make a sound or signal you are a dead man. Sit still! I ought to kill you, Simon Girty, and I believe that I would but that you once saved the life of a friend of mine. I’ll pay that debt, but after this, if ever I get a chance——”
Girty’s hand stole towards his rifle, which rested upon the tree-trunk beside him, but the action did not escape the sharp eye of the scout.